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Europe's Galileo GPS System Back after Six-Day Outage:
Europe's Galileo satellite navigation system, a rival of the American GPS network, is back in service after a six-day outage, its oversight agency said on Thursday.
"Commercial users can already see signs of recovery of the Galileo navigation and timing services, although some fluctuations may be experienced until further notice," the European Global Navigation Satellite Systems Agency said in a statement.
[...]The European Global Navigation Satellite Systems Agency said the problem was due to an equipment malfunction in the ground control centres that make time and orbit predictions for the satellites.
Though a great deal of progress has been made, the Galileo system is not complete. According to Wikipedia:
The first Galileo test satellite, the GIOVE-A, was launched 28 December 2005, while the first satellite to be part of the operational system was launched on 21 October 2011. As of July 2018, 26 of the planned 30 active satellites are in orbit. Galileo started offering Early Operational Capability (EOC) on 15 December 2016, providing initial services with a weak signal, and is expected to reach Full Operational Capability (FOC) in 2019. The complete 30-satellite Galileo system (24 operational and 6 active spares) is expected by 2020. It is expected that the next generation of satellites will begin to become operational by 2025 to replace older equipment. Older systems can then be used for backup capabilities.
There are 22 satellites in usable condition (satellite is operational and contributing to the service provision), 2 satellites are in "testing" and 2 more are marked as not available.
Given the problem was with a reference time signal, I wonder if anyone involved was playing this song? Or how about this variant of it?
(Score: 1) by hwertz on Saturday July 20 2019, @05:57AM
"I can't think of a Swedish example. Perhaps they have worked out how to project manage large projects?"
Or maybe they just budget accurately. (Honestly, I don't know if it's better management or budgeting....)
It seems to me some projects run more and more over budget due to, well fill in the blanks.. poor management, unexpected problems, design flaws, specs being changed throughout the project, and so on. A local favorite is to allocate zero for weather delays in construction projects, in a part of the country where cold snaps and heat waves make it impossible for concrete or asphalt to set up at least a month out of the year.
OTHER projects seem to run over budget simply because the budget was pure fantasy, and the "over budget" costs is really more like what one would expect that type of project to cost. This is fairly common here in the US.. some project (whether it's a boondoggle, or necessary infrastructure maintenance or upgrades) is costly enough the voters or city council or whatever will not approve it. So, after the project is voted down a few times, some lower fantasy cost estimate is come up with to get the project approved. Then the project "surprisingly" goes over budget, but it's 2/3rds done by then anyway so it'd be silly to stop it dead in it's tracks by then.